New Stars of the Cartoon World

It’s no wonder adults flocked to see the humour of an unflappable blue dog and his cohorts on The Huckleberry Hound Show. In the show’s first season, story after story in newspapers across the U.S. marvelled at how kids weren’t the only ones watching. The reason? All you have to do is look at any TV highlights column that ran next to the stories.

I’ll get to a syndicated piece published April 5, 1959 in a second. But, first, let’s look at the plot summaries from some of the long-running sitcoms that ran that week.

• Grandpa has diet troubles.
• Rivalry is renewed after an old classmate visits.
• Trouble over a big fish.
• Grampa’s surprise party plans backfire (a different TV grampa than the first example).
• Ricky has girl trouble.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather watch a police officer hound with a funny accent get conned by a robber pretending to be the Masked Hornet than any of those tired old plots. Okay, I’d be watching if the episode of December Bride involved Verna Felton hiding or manoeuvring a big fish. Verna Felton is just plain funny.

Regardless, people loved Huck’s light parody and simple fun in those gentler days when television was new but most of the cartoons and sitcom ideas on it were old. Here’s more proof from the Chicago Daily News syndication service. The picture appeared with the story in the Toledo Blade:


Children’s Show . . . A TV Sleeper
Huckleberry Hound Clicks With Adult Viewers, Too
By TERRY TURNER

CHICAGO (CDN)—One of the sleepers of the television season is a cartoon series ostensibly designed for children, Huckleberry Hound (Ch. 13 at 6:30 p.m., Thursdays).
A sleeper is a television program that creeps onto the air without much fanfare and turns into a bit after a few performances.
The new Alcoa Presents series of fantasy shows on Tuesday nights is an example. 77 Sunset Strip began the season with ho-hum ratings but has gained strength.
The Three Stooges still has TV officials shaking their heads in disbelief at the unexpected success achieved by reruns of the ancient comedies.
* * *
HUCKLEBERRY Hound is like that. The show, consisting of three cartoons each program, has done quite well ratingwise.
There are more than a few parents who insist, in a slightly patronizing manner, that they watch Huckleberry Hound most weeks “because the kids are watching, you know.”
Judging from the imitations of some of the cartoon’s characters heard around business offices, I suspect that most of the parents are watching because they like it, too.
* * *
I’VE HEARD more than one dignified advertising executive yell across an office to a cohort:
“I hate you meeces to pieces!”
This is one of the lines of Jinks, a bewildered, determined cat who competes with two happy mice (the meeces) named Dixie and Pixie.
Jinks talks with a modified beatnik and bop slang. Hit by a falling tree or a crashing rock, he’ll blink his eyes and say:
“Like tell me now. Like what happened?”
* * *
THE SECOND of the cartoons features Yogi Bear, an Art Carney type character who wears a Joe College porkpie hat while ambling his way through “Jellystone Park.”
Yogi, who ends every sentence on a rising inflection and who smiles throughout the chaos that besets him, likes to talk to the TV audience.
He smuggled a stray elephant out of a secret exit in the back of a cave one night, turned to the camera and said:
“You’ve got to admit. I’m smarter than the average bear.”
Later, threatened by some zoo keepers, Yogi grinned and countered with, “You dare to threaten government property?”
* * *
HUCKLEBERRY Hound is a sincere hound who talks in a dragging twang straight from the Tennessee hills. He can pronounce “you” with three syllables. Other dogs on the program go “bark, bark, bark” when they appear.
One of Huck’s most recent antagonists was a termite that sang, “buzz, buzz, buzz-deebuzzbuzz” in a deep bass voice. Huck never did “terminate that termite.”
And there was the time . . I give up, these things are impossible to explain.
Ever try to explain a Tom and Jerry movie cartoon to a friend? That’s the way it is with Huckleberry Hound.
As the saying goes, you’ve got to be there.

And, you know, in looking at the TV highlights column of newspapers today, with airhead manufactured “real” people, dragged-out competition shows set up like soap operas, and steady streams of network-annointed political pundits yelling at each other, I’ll take Huck matching wits with a termite over other programming, even today. Considering what’s on now, I’d settle for Verna Felton hiding a fish in her housecoat for that matter.